In "Law of the Desert", Shad Marone is on the run. He shot a man in a fair fight, but the sheriff is his bitter enemy, and Shad knows he'll never get a fair trial.

In "Desert Death Song", Nat Bodine is given a choice: to die by hanging or take his chances in the desert. But when a good woman believes in a man, he finds the will to survive.

Kim Sartain is an easygoing, peace-loving drifter. But when cattleman Jim Targ challenges Sartain's right to ride across an unclaimed stretch of meadow, Sartain retaliates by deciding to homestead there. Soon, more is at risk than land and pride, when Targ decides to teach Sartain a permanent and deadly lesson.

Three stories from the Louis L'Amour: "West of the Tularosa", "Home in the Valley", and West Is Where the Heart Is" .

Louis L'Amour was the most decorated author in the history of American letters and a recipient of the Medal of Freedom. Now collected here in a single book are several of Louis L'Amour's finest Western stories the way Mr. L'Amour wrote them. At the time Louis L'Amour was writing, it was common practice for editors to rewrite the manuscript to fit certain publishing criteria. The text of The Strong Land has been restored, and the stories within it appear as Mr. L'Amour intended.

Louis L'Amour said that the West was no place for the frightened or the mean. It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." This volume presents nine of L'Amour's ever-popular short stories - history that lives forever.

The open West was a land where wanderers could find themselves a home--a home to fight for, to be changed by, sometimes to die for. From a has-been boxer to a ranch hand taking on his bosses' troubles, the characters in these classic Louis L'Amour short stories are all "riding for the brand" - staying loyal to what matters.

Wetherton has been three months out of town when he finds his first "color", in a crumbling granite upthrust with a vein of quartz that is literally laced with gold! The problem is that the rocks are unstable, and taking out the quartz might just bring the whole thing tumbling down.

After discovering six gold Roman coins buried in the mud of the Devil's Dyke, Barnabas Sackett enthusiastically invests in goods that he will offer for trade in America. But Sackett has a powerful enemy: Rupert Genester, nephew of an earl, wants him dead. A battlefield promise made to Sackett’s father threatens Genester’s inheritance. So on the eve of his departure for America, Sackett is attacked and thrown into the hold of a pirate ship.

Cattle rancher Ben Kerr wants Jim and Jack Casady's prime farmland real bad. He's offered them good money, but they won't sell. When the Casady brothers find Kerr's cattle grazing on their land, surrounded by broken fences, anger rises up like bile in Jack Casady's gut, and tempers flare.

In a remote corner of Utah lies the secret outlaw kingdom of Ben Curry. For 15 years Curry has ruled supreme, as his men have pulled jobs from Canada to Mexico. But the king is getting old...he wants to turn his legacy over to someone younger, tougher. Mike Bastian is Ben's adopted son, a young man who can handle a knife, a gun, his fists, but a man who's never broken the law. Now, as treachery explodes among Ben's riders, and two honest lawmen - Tyrel Sackett and Borden Chantry - begin to zero in on the gang, Mike must choose....

It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes. Shanghaied into forced labor on a merchant vessel, Charles Rodney dies aboard ship from repeated beatings, but not before deeding part of his ranch to Rafe Caradec, whom he hopes will protect his family.

In The Lion Hunter and the Lady, the lion hunter is called Cat Morgan because of his reputation for being able to bag mountain lions alive to sell them to circuses and zoos. As the story opens, Cat is starring down one of the biggest mountain lions he has ever seen. Assisting him is old Long John Williams, a man who is a wizard with a rope, once Cat can lure the prey down onto the ground from a tree.

Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) is a world-renowned novelist and short-story writer noted primarily for his stories of the Western frontier. L'Amour was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, and led an active, world-roaming life as, among other things, a seaman, longshoreman, rancher, miner, lumberjack, and boxer before focusing on writing after World War II. L'Amour was awarded both the Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Freedom and is one of America's best-selling fiction authors.

Majestically it rose from the icy waters, the gateway to the awesome wilderness of Alaska. Sitka drew all brand of adventurers, con men, criminals, and pioneers—men such as trail-tough, battle-hardened Jean LaBarge. He left the swamps of the Susquehanna behind for the rugged beauty—and deadly challenges—of this frozen frontier. But the empire-hungry Russians had already established a foothold in Sitka and they wouldn’t give it up without a fierce and treacherous struggle that stretched from San Francisco to the palaces of St. Petersburg.

Louis L’Amour said that the West was no place for the frightened or the mean. It was a “big country needing big men and women to live in it.” This volume presents five more of L’Amour’s fine short stories about the West.

Val Darrant was just four years old the snowy night his mother abandoned him. But instead of meeting a lonely death, he met Will Reilly - a gentleman, a gambler, and a worldly, self-taught scholar. For 10 years they each were all the family the other had, traveling from dusty American boomtowns to the glittering cities of Belle Époque Europe - until the day Reilly’s luck ran out in a roar of gunfire. But it wasn’t a gambling brawl or a pack of thieves that sealed Will’s fate. It was a far more complex story that Val would soon uncover.

In "Law of the Desert", Shad Marone is on the run. He shot a man in a fair fight, but the sheriff is his bitter enemy, and Shad knows he'll never get a fair trial.

In "Desert Death Song", Nat Bodine is given a choice: to die by hanging or take his chances in the desert. But when a good woman believes in a man, he finds the will to survive.

Most folks would call Kim Sartain an easygoing, peace-loving man. But the few who crossed the young drifter knew there was nothing he liked better than a good fight. When cattleman Jim Targ challenges Sartain's right to ride across an unclaimed stretch of meadow, Sartain decides he'll do better than ride through: He'll put down stakes there and homestead the land. So there's more at risk than land and pride when Targ hires a gunman to teach Sartain a permanent - and deadly - lesson

More than any other writer before or since, Louis L'Amour brought the American West to life. His action-packed stories deal with eternal themes: honor, deceit, passion, betrayal, loyalty, courage, love. His settings are historically accurate, his prose riveting, and his characters colorful: good guys, bad buys, toughs, roughs, sidekicks and saints.

Louis L'Amour is now one of the most iconic Western writers of all time, but once upon a time he was Jim Mayo, a regular writer for the pulps. Some of the tales he wrote in those days stuck with him enough that he later revised and expanded them into novels. But there was a special magic to the originals, and after research and restoration, these stories appear here now in their original form.